Mayor may not step down

Cr Adams, who ran as an independent candidate for Kwinana but was beaten by incumbent Roger Cook by 1150 votes, had vowed to stand down as Mayor at the next local government election ” even if she lost her bid for the State seat.

She said Colin Barnett’s government now only required the support of the Shooters and Fishers party ” which could be done with negotiation ” to push through forced amalgamations.

‘I cannot see the government going into elections in October when there’s an agenda on reform; it doesn’t make sense,’ she said.

Ms Adams said if elections were still held in October, she would ‘probably’ maintain her vow to step down, and would ‘take a break and see what comes up’.

However, Cr Adams told the Courier she believed the government would forgo October’s elections and either move for councils to run in caretaker mode headed by chief executive officers, or extend the working period of current councillors.

Because she does not anticipate an election, Cr Adams said she was not expecting to stand down.

She said both the Robson Review and a map compiled by the G20 group of councils didn’t show a ‘rosy outcome’ for the City of Kwinana maintaining the status quo.

‘Not much was mentioned about local government reform during the election by either party,’ she said.

‘At the end of the day the City of Kwinana will need to make a leadership decision as to what’s best for Kwinana for at least the next 20 years.

‘I’ll be part (of that).’ Cr Adams said losing her bid for MLA ‘was always going to be tough’.

‘I had always psychologically braced myself for the possibility,’ she said.

She said she was disappointed with the Greens’ ‘short sighted’ decision to direct preferences to Mr Cook, instead of maintaining the relationship they had formed with the independent candidate in the previous election.

She said Liberal candidate John Jamieson, who was a late entrant to the race for Kwinana, polled very well because of Federal Labor’s failings.